


Out of the Corner of Your Eye

by sophiegaladheon



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Trick or Treat 2020, Trick or Treat: Trick, spoilers through the end of Cryoburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:35:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27170104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiegaladheon/pseuds/sophiegaladheon
Summary: Simon sees ghosts.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Out of the Corner of Your Eye

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SouthernContinentSkies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernContinentSkies/gifts).



The first time it happens he isn’t even coherent enough to wonder if he is going mad.

Simon wakes up to a throbbing headache and the fog of lingering anesthesia. The lights are dim but not off in the ward as they always are at night, the beds mostly empty. Simon can hear the soft, slumbering breaths of one of his fellow volunteers, two beds over and two weeks further along in the recovery process. Heeled shoes click and something rattles on a cart passing by in the corridor outside.

He takes a slow breath and feels slightly clearer. He does not feel enormously changed, doesn't feel as though the chip that has just been installed in his brain has somehow made him a completely different person. But perhaps that will come later. 

Cautiously, Simon opens his eyes. 

There is a figure standing at the foot of his bed. Simon doesn’t flinch, but only because he is still restrained by the drugs. 

Ensign Katsaros stares at him. Simon stares back. _What are you doing out of bed?_ he tries to say. But the tides of unconsciousness are pulling him swiftly back out to sea, and he can’t manage more than an indistinct mumble.

The last thing he remembers, as the darkness swallows him up, is how silent the ward has gone, and how heavy the weight of Katsaros’s solemn stare felt.

In the morning, the bed two over from Simon’s is empty. Scuttlebutt among the remaining volunteers held that he’d passed in the night. Aneurysm. One of the better options, as far as their many and horrific potential fates went.

Simon avoided these discussions. It took him a worrying amount of time to remember that he’d seen Katsaros wearing his uniform the night he died. Simon had never seen any of his fellow volunteers in uniform. They were ostensibly incognito here.

And Katsaros had died in his sleep.

He knew the threat of insanity was very real. But, as he recovered from his surgery and then learned to use the chip, the doctors pronounced him stable, a success. There were no repeats, no other strange occurrences.

And Simon let himself believe that it was a coincidence—merely some strange, drug-induced dream.

That was certainly better than the alternative.

* * *

Lady Vorkosigan says that Barrayar is full of ghosts.

Simon is never entirely sure if she means this literally.

The pronouncement would usually come after she discovered some particularly bloody bit of Barrayaran history, or serve as a comment on some social custom or other that her Betan sensibilities found particularly backward. It is usually made in a sad or despairing tone of voice (as opposed to the more common refrain of _Barrayarans_ , which can be heard in at least twelve different tones and inflections, each of which has a distinct meaning) and was most likely to be spoken to her husband.

Regardless of whether Lady Vorkosigan intended the statement literally or not, Simon could not help but agree with it.

Barrayar is full of ghosts.

* * *

The corridors of Tanery Base are crowded. A constant thrum of activity pervades the place, the air scented with the faint whiff of smoke and sweat and disinfectant that even the ship-grade air filtration system can’t ever seem to eliminate completely. 

On the surface, signs of stress are minimal. Simon knows this is due to the men’s training, and to Admiral Vorkosigan’s leadership, and to sheer good luck. He also knows that it cannot last. Sooner or later the stresses of confinement, of separation from their families, of the uncertainty and fear of an impending civil war, will send shockwaves and cracks through the population of the base.

He watches his own men as closely as he analyzes the intelligence reports out of Vorbarr Sultana.

It isn’t enough.

Captain Negri stares at him from the corner of the room.

Simon’s office is barely larger than a closet—in fact, from the shelving and the state of the stains on the floor it may once have been. Being the newly-promoted head of ImpSec wouldn’t have rated him luxurious quarters under normal circumstances, but with each and every square centimeter of space needed for Tanery Base’s unexpected transformation into the regent’s front-line headquarters, he feels lucky to have the privacy at all.

He doesn’t even use the space much. Only late at night, when there were still reports to review and paperwork to fill out, great swaths of data collected by agents he doesn’t know if he can trust and compiled by analysts whose allegiance is suspect. The chip feeds him personnel files and cross-references statistics until his head throbs.

Even with the technological assistance, there is still no way he can become the all-knowing chief of ImpSec that Barrayar needs. Not now. Not yet. 

He needs more time.

Captain Negri stares at him from the corner of the room.

He’s in the far corner, right in front of the door. If someone were to come in the knob would slam right into the small of his back. Or possibly go through. Simon holds back a rising hysterical giggle as he distantly wishes for someone to walk in, to test which outcome proves true.

Simon turns his attention back to his reports.

The chip feeds him data.

He focuses on ignoring the specter in the corner.

He realizes that he has read the same paragraph three times when the chip starts giving him data on the length and grammatical structures of the sentences.

Captain Negri stares at him from the corner of the room.

“What do you want?” Simon snaps, curt in a way that vaguely horrifies him. But mostly he is tired and has too much to do to worry or care about whatever vengeance Captain Negri might visit on him from the grave for his disrespect.

Captain Negri stares at him from the corner of the room. 

“Either help me understand your goddamn rats-nest of an intelligence network, or leave me alone. I have work to do.” 

Captain Negri does not blink, or move, or respond.

Simon adjusts his chair, shifting his line of vision away from that corner. He goes back to his files. 

Later, when an aide knocks and draws Simon’s attention away from his analysis once more with the promise of some much-needed caffeine, Captain Negri is gone.

* * *

The grounds of Vorkosigan Surleau are quiet. Simon can hear the distant shrieks of Miles’s children playing in the gardens on the far side of the house, but here, in amongst the neatly tended headstones of Vorkosigans past, it is peaceful.

A sharp early spring breeze ruffles the leaves of the tree above him and he pulls the collar of his coat closer. A bird hops along the top of one of the headstones. He doesn’t know what species. Perhaps he will go look it up in the library, later.

A figure steps out from behind the tree and strides confidently through the maze of graves. He stops and turns back. “Are you coming, Simon?” Aral Vorkosigan asks.

Is it even a question, really? Simon pushes himself up off the little stone bench—knees creaking more than they used to—and takes his place at Aral’s side. 

They fall into easy, even steps as they head towards the lake, Aral making the occasional comment about the land, how it’s changed, how it hasn’t, his pride in his home shining through.

Simon smiles and enjoys the company, and the beauty of a countryside walk in the springtime.


End file.
